Poll: Democrat Crist Tops Rick Scott In Florida Gov. Race

Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (D) leads current Gov. Rick Rick Scott (R) in the 2014 Florida gubernatorial race by 7 percentage points according to a new poll.

The Quinnipiac Poll released Thursday found Crist leading Scott 47 percent to 40 percent. The silver lining for Scott is that a previous Quinnipiac poll in June found Crist leading the current governor 47 percent to 37 percent. In March a Quinnipiac poll had Crist leading Scott 50 percent to 34 percent.

A majority of voters also said that Scott does not deserve to be re-elected. The poll found that 53 percent believe Scott does not deserve another term while 37 percent say he does. Among Democrats, 83 percent said Scott should not be reelected while 9 percent said he should. By contrast 70 percent of Republicans surveyed said Scott should be reelected while 20 percent said he should not.

In a head-to-head matchup 80 percent of Republicans back Scott while 11 percent support Crist, the poll found. Among Democrats, Crist gets 86 percent while 4 percent goes to Scott. Independent voters are more split. The poll found that 44 percent of Independents would support Crist while 41 percent would support Scott.

The new poll also found somewhat lackluster job approval numbers for Scott, with 42 percent approving of the job he's doing and 47 percent disapproving. Meanwhile, according to the poll, 53 percent said they approved of the job Crist did as governor while 36 percent said they disapproved.

The Quinnipiac poll surveyed 1,646 registered voters from between Nov. 12 and Nov. 17. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.